Stories

Every time we return to the house after a walk or an outing, Suzannah rushes to the door, where she places her thumb squarely over the key-hole in the doorknob. She thinks this is completely hilarious. The first time she ever did this, I said something like, "Oh, no! Now we're stuck out here! I guess we're gonna have to sleep in the garage!" She has taken this idea and run with it, and now every day we have an animated little narrative beginning with, "Oh, no! What are we gonna do?" She follows this with frantic exclamations of "We're gonna have to eat a shoe or somethin'! We're gonna have to SLEEP out here! We're STUCK in the GARAGE! I'm HUNGRY!" She throws her hands up in the air in mock distress. The last couple of times, we've gone back and forth:

"We're gonna have to eat a shoe!"

"Shoe soup!"

"A shoe sammich!"

"Shoe macaroni and cheese!"

"Cook me a shoe!"

And so on. It's also fun to be swept up in stories of her own creation; for instance, the other day we walked to the park, and as we were the only people there, she let go of all her inhibitions and promptly turned the jungle gym into a pirate ship. For awhile I was a captain and she was a regular old pirate, I guess, and we had all sorts of crazy adventures on the high seas until she turned to me and announced rather furiously that I BROKE HER BOAT and IT DIDN'T WORK ANYMORE. Plus, there was dirt on her pants, so game over.

Having a baby makes me so aware of the fact that she's such a kid now, someone whose daily company I'm really enjoying. She's so funny, and she does so many things that leave me wondering what in the world goes on in that little mind of hers. (I broke her boat?) She's a shrewd little thing; when I offer one cookie, she'll narrow her eyes and smile coyly and say, "How about two of them?" She's so affectionate, still wanting to rock with me when she wakes up from her naps, and she's always bounding over to me for hugs and kisses for no reason at all. She's gentle and loving with her brother, too, stroking his head and hands and patting his cheeks and wanting to be right there every time I give him a bath. When he cries, she immediately rushes to his side and soothes him: "Oh, oh, it's okay, it's okay!" And in return, Isaac gives her these beautiful and easy smiles. His face is totally open and trusting, and I think to myself, this is EXACTLY why we have two children.

Isaac: I'm so in love with him. He looks a lot like Suzannah did as a newborn, and in many ways he reminds me of her. I love this, noticing the ways in which this sibling connection manifests itself so naturally. But obviously, he is a very different child, too, something I sensed long before he was born -- it's just a totally different energy. He seems so happy-go-lucky already, so willing to humor his crazy mama with a grin when she's dancing around his crib (our changing station) singing a ridiculous song about how she's going to GET HIS NOSE, la la la, and TICKLE HIS BELLY, la la laaaa!

He has slept every night of his life in my arms. I'm almost afraid to write that, because such an admission tends to elicit all kinds of well-intentioned advice on how to get him to sleep on his own, but at seven weeks I think it's perfectly natural and okay to have him attached to his mama. Also, I just really love snuggling my baby, and yes, we sleep so much better this way. I was sort of furtive about co-sleeping with Suzannah; I'd always hasten to add that we never actually meant to bring her right into the bed with us -- we'd spent good money on a bedside co-sleeper! -- but she hated the co-sleeper, and frankly, I'd have slept hanging upside down by my toenails if I could have scored five extra minutes of sleep. When we got the hang of nursing in bed, I didn't have to get up to feed her, and my life started to feel REALLY AWESOME at that point. This time, I don't add any disclaimers -- I never intended to try to make Isaac sleep anywhere else, figuring he'd let us know if he preferred a little more space. But he is such a little snuggler, and sometimes we have five-hour stretches of unbroken sleep now, followed by another two or three after a middle-of-the-night meal. (Suzannah slept much better with me than she did without me, but she tended to wake up and ask where the party was and why I wanted to sleep through it.) Anyway, I read somewhere today that at the end of a mother's life, the fact that she held her baby too much isn't going to be on her list of regrets, and that's pretty much exactly how I feel.

Isaac is a noisy little thing, though, kicking up a racket as he's falling asleep -- snuffles and snorts and grunts. I never used to understand parents who couldn't sleep with their babies because they were noisy or restless sleepers (how noisy can they be? They're babies!), but now I might get it a little. Isaac isn't a restless sleeper at all (yet, anyway), but he does sound like a little piglet before he falls completely asleep. Maybe it's a boy thing, since I found myself sandwiched in the middle of a Winslow Man Duet the other night. The big one was snoring; the little one was snuffling and sighing. Also: Little Dude can scream. This is new to me. Suzannah is a passionate little soul and has been since birth; she can wail, she can rage, but she has never been a screamer. Isaac is generally not a fussy baby, but when he gets mad -- say, when the milk bar is a bit too late in opening, or when he gets sprayed in the face because he's been away a bit too long, he lets out this totally ear-piercing shriek that makes his parents go, "Whoa. DUDE." I'm sure that will stop, right?

Anyway, screams and all, I really like this boy.

When I started this blog, I really intended it to be a place where I could write openly about my family and my life for people I know in "real life." I've wondered, at times, whether this all gets a little boring -- I'm not sure the life of a mama and her two kids (two! kids! How crazy is that?) makes for the most gripping reading, but then again, navigating this new territory with my family is interesting to me, and it's also what feeds my writing now more than anything else, wherever that will lead me -- when I can actually steal a few minutes to write, that is. It all passes so quickly that this is as much my own attempt to process and hold on to each moment as it is a place to share the stories my children and I create on ordinary days.